


could be all our demons, darling

by The_Watchers_Crown



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, Cosyverse, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Romance, Semi-Public Sex, Updates Sundays, assholes to lovers, cw: references to past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29251014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Watchers_Crown/pseuds/The_Watchers_Crown
Summary: It wasn’t meant to happen the first time, and Gerry swears it will never happen again. So it’s only natural that he bends Bouchard over his perfect desk several days later.Or: Artist Gerard Keay and literature professor Dr. Elias Bouchard dislike each other immensely; they were bound to fall in love someday.
Relationships: Background: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Background: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood, Elias Bouchard/Gerard Keay, Past: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 28
Kudos: 74
Collections: Cosyverse





	1. you look like I need a drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly smut, loosely connected by something passing itself off as a storyline (but certainly not a plot).
> 
> (Or: You know how sometimes you set out to write hate sex because it sounds funny and then you accidentally A Romance Novel? ...yeah me neither, that'd be ridiculous.)

Gerry should have stopped drinking an hour ago.

Most times he doesn’t have much to drink at all during these little soirees Courtland Rickard, the principal of King’s College, insists on throwing every six months or so—all in the spirit of education, of course! All in the spirit of tossing money into a burning waste pit, more like. Gerry’s lost count of how many have been held in his own honor (“got his start so young” and “such a remarkable artist” and “can you believe he teaches for us?” all bandied about by Rickard as though Gerry wasn’t within earshot), and a good thing this one, some tediously excessive alumni gathering occupying The Ballroom at 8 Northumberland, _isn_ _’t_. He’s not sure he could stomach the thing without Jon if it were. And therein lies the beginnings of his problem.

Most times he doesn’t have much to drink, but most times Jon is with him, and the bastard’s abandoned him in favor of a long weekend away with Martin before the new term. He’d prevailed upon Georgie to accompany him instead, as she was usually keen on an evening sniggering at pompous bastards from a corner and over a free drink, only she’d already made plans with Melanie and Sasha, and so here Gerry is:

Alone with a glass in his hand, watching a sorry lot of academics peacock themselves in the hopes of earning their department a bit of favoritism, or an additional budget, or some other nonsense. It’s a shame Gertrude never comes to these things.

Speaking of the glass in his hand—Gerry trips back for a long swig and finds it empty. He gives the glass a disgruntled, _how could you?_ look, and mutters, “You’re as bad as Jon and Georgie,” before going off in search of another. The peacocking isn’t nearly as entertaining without a friend; it’ll be altogether intolerable if he’s got to do it without alcohol as well.

There’s a table of full glasses, tiered like a wedding cake, and what a pity there’s not actually cake here. The dinner itself was excellent, but now there are only meatballs and rather dismal-looking crab cakes for grazing.

And lots and lots of wine.

Gerry plucks a full wineglass from the topmost tier, passingly wondering how many this makes. He lost count six or seven—eight? _a bunch_ of drinks ago. It’s not his fault; they’re piddling things, hardly a few swallows each.

Besides, he can hold it well enough, and there’s nothing else to do. He has a sip, squinting across the room. There’s Dr. Euphemia Lin, from the engineering department, with her shock of dyed pink hair, and she’s always good for a laugh and a nothing-better-to-do flirtation, with the understanding that they’re both incredibly gay; he may as well get some spark of joy out of the evening. He begins to make his way across the room, nodding passing greetings to those few he likes, and to several he doesn’t, though he makes sure to fit the barest hint of malice into _those_ smiles. It’s about the only useful thing Mum left him.

He’s halfway across The Ballroom, which sprawls a bit less when it’s all full of tables for upwards of four hundred people, when a man in front of him begins to turn from his companion, some history professor whose name Gerry can never summon.

_Oh god, it would be, wouldn_ _’t it?_

Gerry begins to sidestep, only the man (who is not from the history department, though he’s stuffy enough to be a museum exhibit) has to sidestep as well, in order to avoid knocking elbows with a passing server. The result is an unfortunate collision, ending with half his glass spilled down the man’s front. The man sucks in a furious breath, and Gerry sends a quick curse in Jon’s general direction. Just his luck.

“ _So_ sorry,” Gerry says, his tone belying the words. He is sorry, actually, just refuses to let Dr. Elias Bouchard know that. Besides, he’s sorrier at the loss of his wine than he is that it’s down Bouchard’s well-tailored front. He lets his eyes linger on their way back up that front, knowing it’ll irritate Bouchard as well as his words. He’s awfully good at finding the man’s nerves and placing his weight carefully upon them. Several years’ practice and all. He might do it less often if Bouchard didn’t make it such good fun. Also, if he weren’t so intolerable. “Where’s the loo, then? Best get you cleaned up.”

“Thank you, Professor Keay, I’m quite all right on my own.” Dr. Bouchard holds out a hand to block the one Gerry’s only just begun to extend.

Gerry clucks his tongue and abandons his wasted glass to the nearest table. He manages a tug at Bouchard’s sleeve before being unceremoniously brushed off. “Now, now, don’t be that way, I’ve said I’m sorry. Come on. I insist.”

Bouchard gives him a look of concentrated suspicion, as though Gerry can only be playing at something, and Gerry arches a brow back at him. It’s always entertaining, watching Bouchard struggle to play nice with him. Has he got to make this so easy?

“Fine. If you insist.”

“Perfect,” Gerry says, a smile stretching painfully at his muscles, so anyone who looks might think him delighted to be in Dr. Elias Bouchard’s company, guiding him by the elbow. “And I was doing so well at avoiding you.”

“You’re more than welcome to continue,” Bouchard says through his teeth. His tight smile matches Gerry’s.

“Don’t be silly, Dr. Bouchard.” Gerry shakes his head. “What do you think my da would say if he heard I spilled all over someone and didn’t help clean up my mess?”

A muscle jumps in Bouchard’s cheek; Gerry tucks this reaction into his back pocket.

“I always assumed you were raised making messes. That is what you’re so well-compensated for, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t aware you thought of me at all,” Gerry says cheerfully.

“You make it difficult not to.” Bouchard glances at him, stiff and unreadable, and away again.

“I’ll have you know I always clean my brushes. And have you ever bothered to look at my paintings? Calling them messes is downright rude.”

“There’s paint on your fingers right now, Professor Keay.”

Gerry laughs. There is, a mixture of greens and blues and silvers; he’d been working on a forest heavy-laden with mist and shadows before stepping out of the house. He pats Bouchard on the shoulder, noting with satisfaction the cringe it earns him. “People wouldn’t recognize me without it, you know.”

Bouchard mutters something under his breath that sounds very like, “Something wicked this way comes, I’m sure.”

“Was that a sense of humor?” Gerry inflects the words with some bewilderment. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“No, it was everyday superstition.”

“You never struck me as the superstitious sort.” Gerry’s all-too familiar with the superstitious sort. Not Jon and his never-ending search for his fairy tale (which, Gerry might point out, he’s already _got_ in the form of one Martin Blackwood), that’s all well and good, but his mother, there’s another story entirely. He carries on briskly, trodding all over his own thoughts before they get far. “You’ll have to work much harder to get rid of me.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

They’ve come to the washroom now, and Gerry waves Bouchard ahead of him, lest he try to run away once Gerry’s back is to him. _Would that be so bad?_ Certainly not a loss, aside from the situation’s entertainment value.

“Also,” Gerry says, the door swung shut behind them and effectively cutting off the voices of milling academics and academic escapees and whomever else is about on the university’s bill, “the state of my fingers has nothing to do with the quality of my paintings.”

“Pardon?” Bouchard looks baffled, which is a refreshing change from his more ordinary snide know-it-all condescension.

“What you said before.” The washrooms at 8 Northumberland are as sleek high-class as one might expect. It wouldn’t do to pay for a subpar toilet experience. Gerry ushers Bouchard toward the sinks. There’s nobody else in here. Perfect. _Alone_ with Dr. Elias Bouchard. “Sometimes you’ve got to make a mess to get the beautiful results. My fingers are hardly a reflection of my work.”

“Only your habits?” Bouchard says, and Gerry’s mouth twitches.

“Someone’s in a mood.” He runs the tap, wetting one of the immaculately folded towels. Bouchard snatches it from him before he can apply it to the man’s front. Gerry tilts his head a little, letting his lips fall naturally into a well-practiced smirk; he may as well make the most of the occasion. “Afraid I’m going to take advantage of you, Bouchard?”

“Hardly.”

“Afraid you’d like it, are we?”

Bouchard answers with stony silence, and Gerry rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be so scandalized, Bouchard. It ought to be me in the mood.” His tone slips as dispirited as he’s felt all evening, no matter how he’s tried to rally himself. As entertaining as it is to fuck with Bouchard, it isn’t how he’d choose to spend his evening; there’s an empty studio loft and a collection of paintbrushes waiting for him to come and clear his head. “Here I am with you and I haven’t even got my drink to make it tolerable now.”

“ _You_ dragged _me_ here, and you don’t need your drink,” Bouchard says, his nose wrinkled with distaste. “That little demonstration in there—you’ve had more than enough.”

“I can hold my alcohol just fine.” Not that it’s any of Bouchard’s concern. “I’m not even drunk.”

“I disagree.” Bouchard indicates the wet spots down his shirt.

“Yeah, well, good thing you’re not the authority on the matter. I didn’t run into you because I’ve been drinking, I ran into you because you _moved_ , you nit.” He pauses, considering that. “Maybe you did it on purpose.”

“Because this is how _I_ want to spend my evening.”

“Alone with me? I don’t see why you wouldn’t.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe you’re not drunk, Professor Keay?”

“Frankly darling, I don’t give a damn what you believe.” Gerry moves toward the door. “Now you’re all cleaned up, I’ve minded my manners, and I’m going to get another drink and find someone I actually like to spend time with.” Euphemia’s probably still about. It’s only been a few minutes.

A hand comes down on his shoulder. “No,” Bouchard says firmly, “you’re not.”

It’s Gerry’s turn to eye Bouchard with rather a lot of suspicion, and to pretend that tone of voice hasn’t given him an unpleasant thought. “And what am I doing according to the mighty Dr. Elias Bouchard?”

“You’re getting some air,” Bouchard says, and hauls him out of the washroom. Gerry is none-too-gently steered in the opposite direction of the ballroom and through an exterior door, into the tiny patch of green that separates 8 Northumberland from the hotel next door. Bouchard’s hand grips his shoulder the entire way, insistent prick.

It’s a cool, crisp September evening, the sky clear to show off as many stars as the glow of London will allow. Gerry kicks at an undeserving patch of grass along the way, but doesn’t stop Bouchard from leading him to a place beside the building. He says, “I’d no idea you wanted to get me alone. You might have asked.”

Bouchard doesn’t acknowledge this comment, not even to take the clear opening of pointing out that they were already alone. Shame. He gives Gerry a hard, unimpressed once-over and says, “For God’s sake, stay here,” before going back the way they’ve come.

Gerry supposes, leaning against the brickwork with all the sounds of Northumberland Avenue drifting their way to him, this is what he wanted. Not an evening in Elias Bouchard’s company—absolutely fucking not—but an excuse to escape this little soiree. He’ll have to go in again at some point, but maybe Bouchard’s being some use, making Gerry’s excuses for him, and if that means he’s in there telling everyone Professor Keay (spoken with a sneer, _always_ spoken with a sneer) has had a touch too much, what’s it matter? Everyone aside from Bouchard himself always finds him charming, and Bouchard wouldn’t know charming if it sprawled over his desk with a copy of that albatross poem he’s obsessed with.

Gerry hates that he knows what Bouchard’s favorite poem is.

It’s entirely Jon’s fault. Entirely Jon’s fault he knows Bouchard, head of the English lot at King’s, at all. “Pretentious prick,” he says under his breath.

He’s left alone long enough that he begins to wonder if Bouchard intends to come back; no complaints if Bouchard fails to make a reappearance, mind. He’s just checking the time, wondering if he should duck back inside now, when Bouchard returns with a water bottle, which he thrusts at Gerry so hard it’d slosh all over the place if it were open.

Gerry’s nose wrinkles. “What’s this for?”

“You.” Bouchard fits an astonishing amount of distaste into three letters. “It’s non-alcoholic, I’m afraid.”

“Had no idea.” Gerry makes a scoffing sound and opens the water for a sip. “I told you I’m not drunk.”

Bouchard bestows a patronizing smile. Probably works well on students, really calls on that _oh dear, he_ _’s not angry, he’s just disappointed_ sensation. “Doesn’t Jon usually keep you in check?”

“It’s the other way round, darling.”

“Don’t call me that,” Bouchard says, in a way that suggests he’s just holding himself back from snapping it, or tacking on several swear words. Gerry’s never heard him curse before. He would remember. There’s a hint of color in Bouchard’s cheeks now. It’d be cute, on literally anybody else in the world.

Gerry raises his water bottle. “Whatever you say, sir.”

Bouchard glowers at him, but—and here’s the thing, Gerry’s got a real eye for detail, comes with the territory—he also shivers, just a little, and Gerry can’t be faulted a bit of a grin, a bit of a smirk. He doesn’t remark on it. He can’t stand Bouchard, superior bastard that he is, would never think of touching him, but…well.

“Jon should be here,” Bouchard mutters, and Gerry lets his smile edge poisonous.

“I’m his friend, Bouchard, not his keeper. Did you expect me to drag him along by force this evening?”

“I expected he’d be the one dragging you.” Bouchard looks him up and down, more slowly than the last time, and Gerry thinks he’s impressed despite himself. He ought to be; Gerry happens to know he cleans up well. In a manner of speaking. His hands might have a coat of paint, but he’s in well-tailored slacks and a charcoal button-down marked by a star pattern, with little silver deer skulls for buttons. His tattoos and ear piercings are covered. He’s even wearing a tie, properly knotted and everything. His hair’s probably a great source of offense to Bouchard’s finer sensibilities, though, as it dares touch his shoulders, never mind the dye. “I’m surprised you know how to dress yourself without him along. And where is our Jon?”

“Our Jon,” Gerry says with a sardonic arching of one eyebrow, “is with his boyfriend, probably having mind-blowing sex.” Or very probably not, as it is Jon; he and Martin are more likely to be trading fairy tales and poetry. “Can’t fault him that.” As though he hasn’t been doing that very thing all night, himself. “You should give it a go sometime.”

“What, with you?” Bouchard says, which brings Gerry up so short he nearly drops the water bottle. Maybe he is drunk after all, because he can’t have heard that right. The idea that Bouchard would even _suggest_ —not that he is _suggesting_ —the thought alone is—well, not entirely without interest, but Gerry can’t force it to make any sort of sense in his head.

“I wouldn’t be my first suggestion,” he says slowly, hoping the evening will fall into some semblance of order again, and also hoping it won’t. “I’m a bit out of your league.”

“Are you calling me ugly, Professor Keay?”

Gerry chokes on his water. He pounds on his own chest with his free hand till he stops coughing, while Bouchard looks on, unmoved by his plight. “Are you making a _joke_ , Bouchard?” Surely the man has had a look at himself.

“No,” Bouchard says without rancor, or really much inflection at all. “I’m asking a question.”

“Oh, is that what you’re doing.” Gerry snorts. “No, I’m calling you an insufferable prick. People actually like me. There’s a standard there, you know.”

“Is there,” Bouchard says, but it isn’t really a question, and Gerry scowls at him. “There’s some color in your cheeks, Professor Keay.”

Gerry takes a moment to consider this. Then he sets the water bottle on the ground with more care than the task deserves, and takes a step nearer Bouchard. He waits for Bouchard to reel back in response. But he doesn’t. Bouchard stays where he is, and Gerry takes another step, and then there he is with a hand on Bouchard’s chin.

“You’re actually very easy on the eyes,” he observes, turning Bouchard’s face, studying him with an artist’s practiced eye. Bouchard’s are a noncommittal shade that hasn’t made up its mind between grey or blue, and Gerry considers the paints he’d mix to capture it. Considers the angles of his face, the way the shadows outside 8 Northumberland fall over them, the silver threading throughout chestnut brown hair, the pink of his mouth and the set of his lips; he’d have to catch the _better than you_ on his face. “It’s completely wasted on you, of course. The trouble all starts when you open your mouth.”

“You’re not terrible-looking,” Bouchard says. Gerry’s still holding his chin, and doesn’t suppose that’s what Bouchard would say if he desperately wanted him to stop.

“Thanks,” he says with a flash of smile. “And what would you do if a not terrible-looking man kissed you, Dr. Bouchard?”

There is _some_ sort of response to that on Bouchard’s face. Probably Jon could tell him what it was, but Jon’s not here, and if Jon were here they wouldn’t be in this absolute hash of a situation. Gerry wets his lips. He’s going to fucking hate himself in the morning, he knows it. But tonight it’s dark and he’s probably not drunk but has had rather a lot to drink and Bouchard’s an arrogant prick, but he’s a handsome arrogant prick; this feels almost like a good idea.

Tonight, Bouchard looks curtly back at him and says an acerbic, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” and Gerry finds, regrettably, that he would.

So Gerry kisses him.

His first thought, surprisingly, is not that he’d prefer to be in bed with a spider, but that Bouchard’s mouth is pleasantly warm. It’s a chaste kiss for about two seconds before he comes to _sod this_ and really presses the issue, spinning Bouchard to back him up against the building and hold him there, one hand flat on his chest. The next surprising thing is that Bouchard isn’t shoving him away, is in fact kissing him back, and there’s more teeth involved than is usually considered polite on a first go, but Gerry realizes, without even the mounting horror he expects, that he likes it.

He _likes_ the way Dr. Elias sodding Bouchard is kissing him.

_All right. If that_ _’s the way it is._

Gerry nips properly at Bouchard’s mouth, chases with his tongue. Bouchard’s got one hand on his shoulder, grip tight, like he wants it to hurt. Gerry laughs into his mouth at the thought, and Bouchard drags teeth over his tongue, which makes him moan and push Bouchard harder against the brickwork, holding his other wrist at his side, probably digging too hard, but Bouchard doesn’t protest.

“You like that?” Gerry finds himself asking when he pulls away, his voice a touch desperate, as though the answer might actually interest him. For his part, he appreciates the look of Bouchard’s mouth when it’s wet and kiss-dark. He’d like to make a mess of that neatly-combed hair as well, but decides to leave that for later; the thought— _later?_ —is appalling, and he distracts himself from it by catching Bouchard’s bottom lip in his teeth a moment. “Answer me. Do you like that?”

Bouchard says, “Shut up, Professor Keay,” but the shudder that rolls through him is its own answer.

Gerry doesn’t mean to grin, nor for his voice to drop lower on the old register, and lack of intent doesn’t stop either of those things from happening. “That’s a yes, then.”

This time it’s Bouchard kissing _him_ , yanking him in much too roughly by his tie, which isn’t the worst use for the thing he can think of. Wrapping it around Bouchard’s wrists, that sounds like another excellent use for it, but Gerry finds kissing distracts him from the thought. He slides a leg between Bouchard’s thighs, and Bouchard makes a sound that comes off unhappily agreeable, and doesn’t that just sum up this whole wretched situation? Gerry might laugh again, if Bouchard didn’t have a hand sliding round the back of his neck and pressing down.

Gerry—god help him—likes that, too. The way it hurts. The little sound Bouchard makes when Gerry adjusts his grip on his wrist. The new discovery that Dr. Elias Bouchard, when Gerry’s hips press in, is hard.

“Dr. Bouchard,” he says, and shivers when Bouchard opens his eyes to look at him. It isn’t much, but evidently it’s enough for—whatever the fuck this is. “Is there something you’d like?”

Bouchard doesn’t respond at first, and Gerry thinks that might be the end of that. The thought is surprisingly disappointing.

Then Bouchard mutters, “Let go,” and Gerry releases him entirely. He hasn’t yet stepped back—Bouchard still has a hand at his neck, the messages here are awfully mixed, aren’t they?—when Bouchard’s other hand, the one he’d had pinned to the wall, finagles its way down Gerry’s trousers, working under both layers, and Gerry only says a somewhat dumbfounded, “Oh,” when Bouchard’s fingers wrap around his cock.

The position is hardly ideal, and trapped beneath clothes between two men, Bouchard hasn’t got the room to achieve any sort of finesse, and he’s squeezing a little too tightly, which turns out to be the perfect amount. Gerry’s forehead drops onto Bouchard’s shoulder and he feels Bouchard’s hard, answering breath—feels it even more keenly than the thumb swiping over the head of his cock, and he’s not sure which it is that has him attempting to roll his hips.

“I had no idea this was all it would take to shut you up,” Bouchard says, amused and almost musing. Gerry turns his face and bites at what can be reached of his throat, which isn’t much, but is enough to stutter Bouchard’s breath.

“You saying you would have done it ages ago if you’d known?” Gerry asks, and Bouchard makes a thoughtful sound, does something with his wrist that makes Gerry moan. He kisses Bouchard when he comes, doesn’t even use his teeth in it, though Bouchard does, and Gerry has to stop himself from whining into the literature professor’s holier-than-thou mouth.

Bouchard extricates his hand from Gerry’s slacks and wrinkles his nose, like the result is a surprise.

“You did it,” Gerry says lazily, feeling nice and relaxed now he’s come. He gets suggestive with his eyebrows. “Want me to clean it up for you?”

The disgust that crosses Bouchard’s face is the denial sort; even so, Gerry feels the giveaway twitch of interest from Bouchard’s cock, and shifts to press his hand against him.

“I’d hate to be rude,” he says. “I had best do something about _that_ , hadn’t I?”

* * *

When they make it back inside, Gerry’s smirking like the cat that got the cream, and Bouchard looks freshly informed that everything dull and tedious (his favorite sort, Gerry assumes) has been canceled forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If [Through the looking glass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16173707) features Cosyverse canon (so to speak), this is an alternate universe from that. I'm doing my best to make this fic friendly to folks who haven't read Ttlg :)
> 
> Fic title and all chapter titles borrowed (with much love) from The Amazing Devil. "could be all our demons, darling" is from [Wild Blue Yonder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9yBzW6NgzM) and "you look like I need a drink" is from [Farewell Wanderlust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PSvYqYTBI8).
> 
> This will typically update every Sunday. Any schedule adjustments will be noted in the tags.


	2. daylight again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to those who have given kudos/commented/subscribed so far!!
> 
> chapter cw: nonconsensual kissing

“How was your benefit or whatever?” Georgie asks when Gerry breezes into the living room, because the other option is _edging shamefully_ into the living room, and he can’t go giving himself away now. She pauses the film she’s got playing, and looks inquisitively at him, as do Melanie and Sasha; apparently the Keay-Sims-Barker living room is the place to be tonight. All three women are in pyjamas, Georgie’s curls artfully untamed, Sasha’s burnished hair coming free of its usual neat braid, and Melanie’s bob tipped forward to obscure her face. Chinese takeaway containers litter the floor.

“It was fine.” Gerry flaps as vague a hand as he can. He’s put himself back together as well as he can, doesn’t think he _looks_ like he’s gotten off outside a fancy dinner with a man he half-loathes. He and Bouchard had gone their separate ways shortly after returning to the event, and hadn’t met again before Gerry left. Gerry _had_ picked up another drink, but Bouchard didn’t appear to tell him off for it. Probably off licking his wounds the way Gerry’d been licking at his neck. Gerry shudders now at the thought, and not in the good way.

He let Dr. Elias Bouchard come all over his fist tonight. Dr. Elias Bouchard brought _him_ to a rather excellent orgasm. One that really had no right whatsoever to be as good as it was. Even half that good.

Christ, he really did _like_ it. There’ll be no living with himself after this.

“That bad?” Georgie sounds genuinely interested now, and he is absolutely not going to tell her, never mind the rest of the room’s occupants, he—he can’t even make it through the thought without coming over with a vague sense of impending doom, like this is all going to end poorly. Like he even intends to think of it again after tonight.

“I just said it was fine.”

“Yeah.” Georgie cocks her head, her nose all scrunched up into its most adorable. “But you look like someone’s gone through and added mustaches to all your paintings.”

This gets a bark of laughter all around. Melanie chokes on a bite of sesame chicken.

“No,” Gerry says with a shake of his head. “No, everything’s fine, it was just…” _Stupid hot._ Another hand flap. “Tiring. Pointless. All the things they usually are and then some.”

“You should go to bed,” Sasha offers, capturing a generous amount of lo mein in her chopsticks.

“Nah, not that kind of tiring. Think I’ll go upstairs and get some painting done.”

And that’s exactly what he does, even through the horror that mounts with each stair taken.

There are plenty of half-complete paintings in the loft space he converted into his studio when he inherited the Chelsea terrace house (formerly also a bookshop specializing in the occult) from his mother. Rather than choose something already begun, Gerry finds himself a fresh canvas and goes to work with acrylics. He doesn’t so much focus on what it is he’s putting down, until he comes to a stop an hour later and realizes the hair on the man he’s begun to draw looks too much like Bouchard’s.

“Never again,” he tells himself sternly, and rips the sheet away. He balls it up and chucks it into the bin.

* * *

_Gerard Keay._

It’s several hours since the end of the alumni dinner, and Elias is scowling at himself in his bathroom mirror.

Gerard Keay kissed him.

And he kissed back.

And they—

What was he thinking?

Wasn’t thinking at all, was he, and therein lies the problem. He ought to have shoved the younger man away the moment he panther-slunk too close. It should never have gotten as far as kissing, never mind the exchange of fingers sliding over cocks.

Elias shivers; he’d prefer to pretend it was a shudder, but it wasn’t. But really, of all the people in the wides of the world.

Gerard Keay is everything Elias despises. Messy, sarcastic. (Gorgeous, also.) Unqualified for the position he’s achieved. There’s that goddamned infuriating smile: always somewhat mocking, teasing, like he knows something Elias doesn’t, aggravated by laughing honey-brown eyes. (Charming, too.) There’s the long, dyed hair he’s too old for. And he’s never entirely still, a frenetic energy about him. Elias would almost call him fey, liken him to a creature from the fairy tales with which Jon is so enraptured.

Almost.

He’s not so fanciful as all that.

It’ll never happen again, obviously. Keay was drunk, no matter his repeated protests to the contrary; there’s no other reason anything of that sort would have happened. As the unintoxicated of the two, Elias should have put a stop to it immediately, and he does feel more than a twinge of guilt for not doing so. But the kiss itself was another sort of intoxicating. He’d felt like he was falling into it in a way he hasn’t since—since Peter.

_And that turned out to have such a happy conclusion._

Elias swears under his breath and carries on with brushing his teeth. He doesn’t expect to sleep well tonight, if at all, but dental hygiene, nonetheless. He’s already stripped out of his blazer, found fingerprints of green and blue on the collar of his shirt, and down one side where Keay gripped at him while moaning into his ear. It’s going to stain, damn the man. He undoes one button more, rubs at his neck like he can wipe Keay off of him, and makes his way to his study.

The space bears more than a passing resemblance to his office on campus. There are as many books here as there; he’s got a pair of reading chairs away from the desk, though only one of them is ever occupied; his home desk is an antique. He sinks into one chair, positioned just so beneath the lamp, and slips his reading glasses onto his face.

He’s been reading for only a little while (reading, getting lost in the memory of the curve of Gerard Keay’s jaw and how he’d wanted to put his mouth there, bruise a mark into place with his teeth, of Keay solid against his front, two or three inches taller than Elias, but not so broad; he’s not reading much at all, truth told) when he hears the sound of movement from downstairs. A frown turns his lips and he stands to make his way slowly toward the study door, where he listens.

Yes, there’s definitely somebody moving about. He hasn’t got anything convenient for self-defense, and settles for picking up a hefty bookend—a gift from an old student—and edges out of the room. He makes it down the stairs and stops to listen again, and then hears, “Oh, I thought you were asleep. Did I wake you? Dear me, were you thinking of hitting me with that?” and though he recognizes the voice, Elias still considers throwing the bookend.

He might throw it harder, come to that.

“Peter,” he seethes at the man standing in his front hallway. “How did you get into my house?”

Peter Lukas, all towering six-foot-five, unshaven and well-suited to it, blond-white-haired sea captain of him, frowns at him. “I have a key.”

“And where,” Elias says, his voice perfectly calm, “did you come by a key?”

“It is my house as well.” The way Peter says this, it seems that Elias should already know about it. Maybe he should. Only he thought he’d confiscated all the keys. “Don’t tell me you’re angry at me. I’m only in town for a few days.”

 _I_ _’d expect nothing less. Or more, as it were._ Elias’ jaw clenches. The bookend is still in his hand. If he aimed just right… “This is not your house,” he says, and Peter looks somewhat mystified. “I’d like you to leave, Peter. Hotels exist. I’m told they enjoy having people stay in them. To my understanding, it’s the entire model for their business.”

“You can’t ask _me_ to stay in a hotel,” Peter protests, chiding and flummoxed at once, as though he’s neatly eliminated from his memory every conversation in which Elias made it abundantly clear he was no longer welcome in the Earl’s Court Georgian that was meant to be _their_ house. It’s likely he has. It was his own idea to sign everything into Elias’ name alone upon purchasing the property two decades ago, but that never mattered to him.

“Oh, but I can.” Elias turns and makes his way back up the stairs; there’s a muscle doing something stressed in his throat, and his heart hasn’t entirely calmed down from the idea there’s an intruder. Which there is. Peter’s not an invited guest. He throws over his shoulder, “You can stay in the _guest_ room. I would prefer if you weren’t here when I get up in the morning.”

He endeavors to put as much ice as he can into the word _guest_ , wanting Peter to know he’s nothing of the sort. Only something to be tolerated for an evening, and only as long as Elias doesn’t have to actually look at his ex-never-quite-husband. He supposes, with wry bemusement, that Gerard Keay might not be as low as he can sink after all. Bottom’s something he’s already hit more than once. _The bottom of the ocean floor?_ he ponders.

“Good night,” Peter calls cheerfully after him; it becomes a much greater effort not to heave the bookend back at his face.

* * *

Elias locks his bedroom door and falls into bed without changing. It’s a long time before he falls asleep.

* * *

Peter hasn’t gone in the morning.

Elias wakes early, as usual, and opens his bedroom door to the smell of coffee drifting along the hallway. He considers slamming the door shut again and refusing to leave until he knows for certain that Peter is out of his house. His stomach, however, seems malcontent with the idea of staying in his bedroom, so Elias grudgingly makes his way downstairs. Halfway down he remembers that he’s in last night’s clothes, rumpled now between Keay’s grasping fingers and restless sleep.

When he reaches the kitchen, he finds Peter’s made himself well at home. He’s at the table with a newspaper and a bowl of oatmeal; there are dirtied dishes in the sink, and it smells of strawberries and a hint of cinnamon. Elias’ stomach turns for several reasons.

“Morning,” Peter greets him, as though his presence alone isn’t an invasion. As though Elias hadn’t told him in no uncertain terms that he should be gone in the morning.

He supposes, by Peter’s standards, he didn’t. _You said you would prefer it,_ he can imagine Peter saying in his wheedling, ‘I know better than you’ way, were Elias to mention it. _You didn_ _’t say I had to be._ He should have learned by now to be specific where Peter is concerned. He should have learned a lot of things by now where Peter is concerned.

“Hello,” Elias settles on instead, because it’s safer. Less likely to lead him to shouting first thing in the morning, anyway. He doesn’t look at Peter as he crosses the kitchen, keeps his eyes locked to the refrigerator and rifles through it for temporary safe harbor. He comes out with eggs and a bowl of diced peppers and tomatoes. Still doesn’t look at Peter as he straightens up and goes to the stove.

“Did you sleep well?” Peter asks.

“I slept fine,” Elias says, which isn’t the entire truth. What dreams he remembers were an odd amalgamation of Gerard Keay and Peter, both of them asking if he would be so kind as to read over their work. “I hope the guest room suited you.”

“It didn’t.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Elias’ tone, ostensibly benign, makes it clear he isn’t sorry at all. “That ought to motivate you to go and find a hotel for the remainder of your time in London.”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” Peter says, and there he is, as Elias reaches for a spatula. Elias doesn’t know when he moved, only that Peter is behind him now. Peter was always unnaturally quiet, sneaking around the place and startling him when he came home, it was a miracle Elias never had a heart attack, living with him, or sort of living with him; it occurs to him now, and the thought is a sour one, that Peter was lying last night. He must have wanted Elias to know he was here, must have _wanted_ to wake him, or Elias would never have heard him creeping about.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Elias says through clenched teeth.

“I thought I might just move down the hall.” Peter shows no sign he’s noticed Elias’ anger. He has, of course. He always has. Peter makes it entirely too easy for Elias to remember how he came to hate him. Why he kicked him out of this very house six years ago.

“I wasn’t aware you’d come back to London,” is all he gives, in place of an answer, not because he’s afraid the wrong words might come out—it’s easy to tell Peter no, harder to get him to accept it, his repeated presence here proof enough of that—but because he _wasn_ _’t_.

“Last time I told you I was coming through, the house was empty.”

“Noticed that, did you?” Elias’ voice is cold steel. He’d arranged to go for several days of guest lectures at the University of Nottingham; he hadn’t realized Peter let himself into the house in his absence. The man’s an absolute bastard. “I didn’t want to see you.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Peter says, one hand on Elias’ shoulder. Surprise tints his voice. “Have you taken up painting?”

Elias jerks an elbow behind him, meaning to jab Peter just hard enough to make him back off.

The trouble with his ex-never-husband being a sailor—one of the many, _many_ troubles—is that he’s used to fights, and more dexterous than Elias in all his tweed-wearing-glory will ever be. Peter catches Elias’ elbow and uses his own momentum to swing him around and back him up against the counter, and for a moment Elias is outside 8 Northumberland with Gerard Keay, and then Peter says, “There we go,” with a smile Elias remembers loving, once, and takes his mouth.

Peter tastes just the same as he always has, and this has two simultaneous, opposite effects: Elias wants to let Peter kiss him, because it would be so easy, and Elias is reminded violently that he _doesn_ _’t_ , because it would be so easy. He would prefer to be against the brickwork of 8 Northumberland with an arrogant-smiling painter. He sets his hands on Peter’s chest and pushes; Peter laughs, and Elias snarls around the tongue swiping into his mouth. It occurs to him a bit belatedly to bite.

That gets Peter off of him, still grinning, like he’s bloody well pleased with Elias’ sharper edges. Elias wipes at his mouth with the back of one hand, the other held up between them like a shield. “I want you out of my house,” he says hollowly, and turns back to his burning breakfast.

* * *

As with most Sundays, Georgie’s up and out of the house to help Michael open at Cosy sometime before Gerry’s yawned and stretched and slithered his way out of bed. He’s in the mood to cook up a big breakfast, but there’s nobody home to appreciate it, so he settles for a bowl of cereal while mulling over what to do with his day. He’s got a show coming up in December, and though he already has plenty of completed pieces at the ready, there’s no reason he shouldn’t finish up a few more.

Besides, he hasn’t got anything else to do with himself.

He spends several hours at work in the loft, a swooping, cavernous space that used to be several different rooms and the better part of two storeys. Mum would hate it, but Da loves it, and only one of them is alive to have an opinion, and even if Mum were around, Gerry wouldn’t give a toss for hers. He shifts between acrylics and pencils (and beads, for about five minutes before deciding that’s a project for a different day), his music turned low, before the front door opens and shuts downstairs, and Jon’s voice calls, “Anyone home?”

Gerry shuts the music off altogether and makes his way down, where he finds Jon still in the front hall. His hair’s wet-plastered to his cheeks, but he looks, dare Gerry say, vibrant. “Is it raining?”

“No,” Jon deadpans, “I decided to go for a swim in my clothes before I came inside.”

“That does sound like you. You’re such an odd little duck, Jonny. Suppose the whole duck business is why you’ve been swimming in your clothes?” Gerry reaches for Jon’s suitcase and hefts it into the air while Jon gives him a _look_. “Did you have a nice trip?”

“It was perfect.” Jon doesn’t expand, and Gerry doesn’t ask; if Jon wants to tell him later about what he and Martin did with their carved out days away, he’ll do it at his own pace. What matters is he’s practically fucking glowing with happiness. “Did you? There was a dinner, wasn’t there? How’d that go?”

“Oh, you know, the usual.” Gerry’s glad his back’s turned, because his face might give him away; Jon’s got a way of undermining his poker face. He’d spent too much time last night hearing Bouchard’s voice, remembering the way Bouchard felt against him and wondering what it might feel like without clothes. Not that he’s ever going to find out, because it’s never going to happen again. “I was only there to look good.”

“And I’m sure you performed admirably.”

“Just like everyone’s favorite peacock, complete with all the hues you’d expect.”

Jon laughs, and Gerry lends a hand with his unpacking, and regrets his helpfulness when Jon asks, mid-suitcase, “You didn’t harangue Dr. Bouchard, did you?”

“That’s not what I’d call it, no. Harangue’s got such a negative connotation.” He gives Jon a wide-eyed, ‘see how innocent I am’ look. _It doesn_ _’t matter. It’s not going to happen again. I’m not even going to think about it again._

And so he doesn’t, right up until he comes all over his fist recalling every solitary detail in the shower later on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title this time borrowed from [Little Miss Why So](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O-6xGnGi44).


	3. starts off like a pin prick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's chapter title courtesy of [New York Torch Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWVN_2chDAE)!

Everything goes quite well for the next week. Gerry runs one-on-one meetings with the students who’ll be in his classes this term, always preferring to have a read on them going in, and a few informal lectures on life as a professional artist and similar threads, all intimate little sit downs with no more than ten students sunk into beanbag chairs (he’s found new students are less intimidated by him when he’s sprawled in a beanbag) and boxes of scones and muffins from Cosy. It’s all busy enough to push away any memory of Bouchard’s hand wrapped around his cock.

For several blissful days, he doesn’t think of Dr. Elias Bouchard at all, which is of course his preference. With students, and in some cases his fellow faculty, clamoring for his help, there’s no time to pop off to Jon’s office for a quick visit, and Gerry’s more surprised than anyone when it’s Jon who appears in the classroom Gerry has commandeered while he’s examining a painting from every possible angle ( _something_ is wrong with it) and say impatiently, “We were meant to meet for lunch twenty minutes ago, come _on_.”

“Were we?” Gerry checks the time and is shocked to realize Jon is right.

“I expected you to barge in on my meeting with Dr. Bouchard and tell me he could have me back later and—why do you look like your mother’s been resurrected?”

“Well you have mentioned Bouchard.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “I do see him regularly.”

“Better you than me.” Jon’s said the name and that’s all it takes, Gerry’s discovering, to send him back to that night, back to Bouchard in the dark. Just punishment, isn’t it, for his heinous lapse in judgment; probably the best kiss he’s had in years, and it’s not an experiment he means to repeat.

They lunch at a diner near campus that serves mouth-watering chicken sandwiches, and Gerry follows Jon back into the English building, which was always going to be a mistake. They’re nearly into the safety of Jon’s office—Jon refuses to let him bribe King’s into giving him a better one, stubborn arse—when a student, an absolute slip of a girl, scurries toward them the way only a proper mouse ought to manage, calling, “Professor Sims,” in a voice bigger than the rest of her, and Gerry respects that.

“Lea,” Jon greets, not as sour-faced as he might be when confronting one of his charges; she must be one of the good ones, lucky girl.

“Have you got a moment?” She shifts her bag from one shoulder to the other, giving Gerry the sort of nervous smile that says she’s afraid he might bite. And fair enough, he might, but it’s not likely _she_ need worry about it; she’s a bit soft, and more importantly a bit young. A bit female, as well.

“Of course,” Jon says. “Gerry, I’ll see you in a few minutes?”

“Odds are good,” Gerry agrees, and then he’s left standing alone in the hallway, weighing his options.

In the end he makes the absolute wrong choice: tucks his hands into his pockets and ambles along to the U-shape with the offices, the _real_ offices, and offers the student at the desk his most charming smile. “Dr. Bouchard in?”

The girl nods and waves him on, and Gerry nearly starts whistling a cheery tune, but that seems a little much, somewhat put on, and so he doesn’t; he also doesn’t bother with knocking, just lets himself in and finds Bouchard, reading glasses pushed high on his nose, bent over whatever it is he works on. He must be awfully caught up in it, as there’s no reaction until Gerry _clicks_ the door shut behind him.

Bouchard’s brow is already furrowed as he lifts his head. If Gerry felt at all romantic about the situation, he might be inclined to smooth that away, but as things stand he just thinks, _Yeah, that looks about right._ “I’m sorry, it’s not office hou—oh. Professor Keay.” His tone stiffens right up. Gerry wonders (because his brain’s turned traitor) if anything else has stiffened along with it. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Jon’s occupied,” Gerry says with a careless shrug. Bouchard’s wary eyes follow him across the room. He considers rounding the desk, really putting Bouchard on his toes, but drops into the chair instead, lounging as though it’s the most comfortable seat in the world and one that belongs to him, to boot.

“And I’m your second choice?” Bouchard’s fingers clench around his pen; memory ghosts that grip back over Gerry’s cock, and he’s got to suppress a shiver.

Gerry extends a hand leisurely, studies the paint beneath his nails a moment before ticking off on his fingers. “Second, third…honestly, you don’t crack the top hundred, but…” He grins. With teeth. There’s something to be said for the way Bouchard is looking at his hand, the way blue-or-grey eyes stray toward his neck.

He leaves his trailed off sentence to linger in the air between them as long as possible, till Bouchard says, “But what, Professor Keay?”

“But you’re the only one in this building,” Gerry says with a sigh. “Also, I was thinking.”

“About what?” Bouchard doesn’t disguise his irritation. Gerry arches an eyebrow at him. He knows full well he’s being a fucking idiot, playing with fire, that he should be leaving well enough alone. Let Bouchard be a one-time occurrence.

He says, “I was thinking about your mouth,” and pauses before adding, all irritation, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about your mouth.” It had showed up in another painting, the curve of Bouchard’s lips, though it wasn’t his face fit around them. “It’s been damned annoying, you know.”

“As I recall,” Bouchard says, his voice obnoxiously steady, like this is a lecture he’s giving on eighteenth century poetry or whatever the hell it is Bouchard lectures on, “ _you_ kissed _me_ , Professor Keay. And as you were drunk, I shouldn’t have allowed that, so consider this my apology.”

“Don’t remind me.” Gerry watches as Bouchard stands and comes around the desk himself, just watches, and then Bouchard is in front of him, between Gerry’s knees and his own desk, frowning down, entirely too put-together, and Gerry is taken with the urge to rip it all away. “As _I_ recall, _you_ put your hand down my trousers.”

“I’d like you to leave,” Bouchard says, but there’s not much conviction behind it.

Gerry slides to his own feet like he might comply, Bouchard’s eyes following him all the while, and takes one step forward. Bouchard takes a matching one back. Trouble is, there’s a desk there. A perfectly immaculate desk, which Gerry thinks he might like to bend the man over. The thought has him stirring in his jeans, and he can’t be arsed to be irritated at his own physical response.

Another step forward, and he’s got Bouchard fully trapped between himself and the desk. There’s plenty of room left to either side for escape, if Bouchard really wants to.

“I’ll go when I’m good and ready.” Gerry rests one hand on Bouchard’s chest. Stupid, stupid, he’s being horrifically _stupid_. But pressing on Bouchard’s nerves is entertaining as ever it has been (that is to say, dreadfully) and he _was_ an excellent kisser, and it’s not as though Gerry has better prospects at the moment. (A hundred, a thousand, a million reasons, says another voice. Starting with the fact that you hate each other. But Gerry’s never been much for practicality. And that just makes it more fun.)

“ _Professor_ Keay,” Bouchard says, stressing the words, and Gerry tilts his head, and Bouchard’s eyes follow that, too, and Gerry thinks, _Got you._

“So formal, Dr. Bouchard,” he interrupts, nudging forward, his hand pressing just a little without any real intent. “Are you always that way when you’ve had a man’s cock in your hand? I hope mine wasn’t your first.”

Bouchard’s expression breaks for just a moment before he pulls the indifference on again; that taken aback moment of want is all Gerry needs for seizing. When Bouchard’s mouth opens, undoubtedly to tell him once again to get out, Gerry leans in and says, “Tactical error, Dr. Bouchard,” in a low voice before angling his mouth just so, and whatever dickhead comment was about to leave Bouchard’s lips falls away.

Gerry hopes, just a little, that this kiss will be nothing like the ones they exchanged in the dark. That whatever spark there was (ugh, he’s got to think of it a different way, it’s _Bouchard_ for fuck’s sake…magic? no, that’s much worse) will have worn off now that time has passed and sunlight is spilling in through a window.

Those hopes are well-dashed when Bouchard lifts a hand and drags him in properly, and there are teeth again, and a bit of a snarl into his mouth. Gerry groans and shoves his hips forward, his fingers fisting now in Bouchard’s stupid, perfectly pressed (not anymore, is it) shirt. His tongue snakes into Bouchard’s mouth and Bouchard tastes like coffee and a little like chocolate, and when Gerry pulls back there’s a bit of saliva still connecting them; he feels it as he drags his lips along Bouchard’s cheek, his jaw, his throat, and he should be disgusted, not whatever he is now. “Eating something sweet, were you? Didn’t think you liked sweet things.”

“Obviously,” Bouchard says acerbically, and Gerry’s got to laugh.

“You know that sounds like you like me, Bouchard.” Gerry raises a hand to pat him on the cheek. “I wasn’t drunk then, and I’m certainly not drunk now. You haven’t been taking advantage of me, I promise.” No, little student Lea needn’t worry about his biting at all, and Bouchard is a bit old, isn’t he, but Gerry finds, as he leans in to catch Bouchard’s lower lip between his teeth, that works for him. Bouchard makes a little sound that Gerry thinks is pretending to be protest.

“Till next time,” he says sweetly as he pulls away, and Bouchard shakes his head.

“What _next time_?”

Gerry doesn’t answer, only slips out of the office with a bit of a wave. His mouth still tastes a bit like Bouchard’s tongue when he barges his way into Jon’s office and plops down in _his_ office chair instead.

“Found a way to occupy yourself for a few minutes?” Jon hardly looks up from his work; who else but Gerry would come crashing his way in here without knocking and risk the wrath of Jonathan Sims? Gerry happens to be fully aware that Jon’s wrath isn’t half so wrathful as he’d like his students to believe, but he’d never ruin it for him.

“You could say that.”

_Absolutely fucking stupid, Keay._


	4. untethered from the dock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's chapter title comes from [King](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3wFZfpMQmM)!

It’s a relief when Peter’s gone. Elias can breathe more easily in his own home, doesn’t need to worry about stumbling over him at all hours, in any room. He’d slept with his bedroom door locked the entire time Peter was present, unable to stomach the idea of him ‘accidentally’ finding his way into the wrong one; it wouldn’t have been the first time. He left a note that suggests he’s got more business in London coming up and isn’t that something to look forward to; Elias crumpled it up after reading. Then he reconsidered and flattened it back out to put through the shredder.

Burning it seemed a bit excessive, so he smothered that particular urge.

Significantly less of a relief is the mandatory staff meeting several mornings later, during which Arlette Laurie, head of the entire King’s Arts & Humanities staff, presents the faculty with a new initiative: the Humanities Unification for Greater Synergy.

HUGS.

It’s just about the worst thing Elias has ever heard of. He’d like to have a word with whichever nitwit came up with the name. Probably Arlette herself.

“Interdepartmental cooperation,” Arlette says, beaming as though this is a brilliant idea and don’t they all think so, and isn’t it just _wonderful_ that she’s presenting it just at the start of term, when they’ve all got their course plans long since laid out. Elias barely manages to maintain an indulgent smile throughout the explanation.

If the initiative itself weren’t bad enough, there’s also the matter of Gerard Keay, who’s set himself in the same aisle as Elias. At least he’s several seats down. Even so, Elias is entirely too _aware_ of him. Sat there in paint-spattered jeans and t-shirt, the tattoos adorning his arms on full display. Red streaked down his neck and blue flecked onto his lips; what was he doing, _tasting_ his damned paints? He’s been picking at his fingernails too, at whatever color he has lodged there. Despite his better judgment, Elias would like to know. And where else does Keay manage to dash himself with paint?

_I haven_ _’t been able to stop thinking about your mouth._

Heat creeps up Elias’ skin at the memory of Keay’s words. He’s found himself in much the same situation. The way Keay had looked sprawled in his office chair, the fall of hair over his neck dancing the border of obscene, the multiple piercings in each ear, from lobe to helix, and the curve of Keay’s jaw; again he’d wanted to put his mouth there, and even more to suck a mark into place with lips and tongue and teeth.

Hell, he does want to get his teeth into Keay properly.

By the time the meeting comes to an end, Elias has settled on the outlandish choice to actually do something about it. He watches Keay, standing in a cluster with several other art professors, and one from Classics, and inserts himself smoothly with, “Professor Keay, I’d like a word if you have the time.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can make some,” Keay says, almost loftily, and Elias wants to make him _whimper_ ; or he wants Keay to make _him_ whimper, the urge isn’t entirely clear. Keay excuses himself from the group and Elias doesn’t miss the flash of disappointment in another art professor’s green eyes, and he doesn’t think Keay does either, and there’s a curling note of possessiveness that has no place in him at all.

They navigate around knots of staff, pausing for occasional brief exchanges along the way, until they reach the door, and there are several healthy inches of distance between them as they continue down the hallway.

“I suppose you want to discuss HUGS?” Keay’s voice is a vexing blend of innocence and challenge.

Elias doesn’t make the conscious decision to reach for Keay; they’re passing an alcove, a door tucked away, and it seems the thing to do. He closes a hand over Keay’s shoulder and yanks, and kisses him. Keay has the nerve to _laugh_ against his mouth, but he’s kissing back just as quickly, paint-covered fingers climbing up Elias’ front. A fingertip rests at his pulse point, strokes too absently to be genuinely so.

“As interesting as I find this side of you, Dr. Bouchard,” Keay says, his lips hovering half an inch from Elias’, “this might not be the best place for a tryst. Your office or mine, darling?”

“Don’t call me that,” Elias mutters, already analyzing the question. Neither idea is entirely satisfying; each feels like giving ground, in one sense or another, but his own office, at least, is familiar, his own territory. “Mine.”

Keay gives him something at once a grin and a leer that makes him feel indecent, darts in for another kiss; he doesn’t give Elias a chance to response in kind—the man’s like a damned hummingbird—before his mouth is at Elias’ ear and there’s a painted thumb skimming along Elias’ lower lip. “Supposing I take you back to your office and fuck you?”

“Have you lowered your standards then, Professor Keay?” Elias puts as much haughtiness into the words as can be managed, under the circumstances.

“Suppose I must have done,” Keay says, pushing that thumb into Elias’ mouth, and Elias knows again, as he’s curling his tongue around it, listening to what that does to Keay’s breathing, he’s making a mistake.

“Is that paint non-toxic?” he says as the thumb slides free of his mouth.

Keay gives him an _are you fucking with me?_ look, cut through with skepticism. “We’ll need to extract the stick up your arse first, then?”

“Do fuck off, Professor Keay.”

“I’m trying to fuck _you_ , thought I already said.”

Elias sneers, but he’s harder than he recalls being in quite some time. (That night at 8 Northumberland excluded.) “I’m a decade older than you,” he says, as though that’s the only possible reason for this to be a horrible idea, as though he hasn’t already made up his mind, as though this wasn’t decided the moment he asked Keay if he had the time; he doesn’t know why he’s casting about for excuses _now_. To tell himself he tries when he thinks about this later, most like.

“Only one?” Keay’s tone is light and teasing in that way Elias absolutely despises. “Several, I thought.” Two, actually, and another year atop them, but Elias doesn’t say so. He doesn’t want Keay to know that he’s conscious of it. The only reason he _is_ conscious of it is Jon, who he prefers not to think about just now. “You haven’t actually said no, Dr. Bouchard.”

Elias doesn’t, still, and neither does he say yes. He does take a moment to straighten his clothing, and marches from the alcove. It’s early enough that there aren’t many people about campus, thank Christ, the last thing he needs is to be seen disheveled and with the beginnings of an erection, walking side-by-side with a smirking, cat-stretching Gerard Keay.

“You go on, I’ll be just a minute,” Keay says, slowing to a stop outside a washroom outside the English offices and waving Elias on.

Elias refrains from comment. In his office he does not know what to do with himself until Keay’s arrival. This is among the worst ideas he’s ever had. He shouldn’t have said anything to Keay today. Just as he’s on the verge of abandoning his office and leaving Keay to find it empty, the younger man slips into the room and wiggles clean fingers.

So Elias locks the door behind him.

“I’m of two minds,” Keay says, running a thoughtful hand over the edge of Elias’ mahogany desk. “I could fuck you on your desk, or we could test the integrity of your chair.”

Elias’ cheeks burn; he’s not sure if that heat is more outrage or arousal. Nobody’s ever spoken to him like that, not even Peter in all their years of intimacy. Sex was often a quiet affair with Peter; not shamefully so, and preferences were certainly discussed, but the hungry way Keay ponders him while casually suggesting—

“You blush very prettily, Dr. Bouchard.”

“ _Prettily?_ ” Certainly nobody has ever called him _pretty_. If the word suits either of them, it is Gerard Keay, who is pretty in the same dangerous-slinking way as a wildcat. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Professor Keay?”

Keay tsks, leaning against the desk. “Don’t tell me you’re hard of hearing, Dr. Bouchard, I’ve just told you I haven’t decided yet, and anyway I’d rather have you hard of something else entirely.” Yes. Definitely pretty like a wildcat, with those teeth in that smile. With lines befitting the poorer Bond films. “Looks like you already are.”

“That’s appalling. Do you say that to all the men you fuck?”

“If you mean do I make excellent jokes, then yes. I’m glad to hear you’re at least on the same page, the one where I’m fucking you. Now listen, because this is important: desk or chair. Do you have a preference?”

“Do _you_ have a condom?” Elias shoots back. There are more than enough poor, irresponsible decisions being made already for later regretting; there’s not the remotest possibility he’s allowing Keay to fuck him unprotected.

Keay grins that grin of his and produces, from his pocket, not only a condom, but a small tube of lubricant as well.

“Ready to go at any time are you?” Elias manages to keep his voice cool, disinterested, just a hint disdainful, but there’s a part of him chafing at the idea of notches and bedposts, that Keay, handsome as he is, walks around prepared for a (as he called it) tryst, should the opportunity present itself.

“Not as a matter of habit, no,” Keay says, gesturing for Elias to come nearer, and there’s no point, really, in thinking this is against his better judgment, all of it is, and Elias _does_ come nearer, and when he is near enough Keay drops a hand between his legs, gently palms the shape of his cock. “Just started wondering if I could fuck you into shutting up and thought I’d best be ready to find out.”

 _That_ thought—of Gerard Keay lying in his bed, perhaps wrapping a hand around himself and rocking up into it, imagining himself with Elias—is, regrettably, much more appealing, and Elias doesn’t think there’s much choice but to kiss him. It feels, every time, as though they’re trying to devour each other, to see who’s going to come out on top. In a very literal sense, it’s Keay, who gets Elias backed up against the deck and undoes his trousers, stuffs both hands down them to squeeze his ass.

Elias _bites_ him at that, nips at the tongue in his mouth and says, “If you’re thinking of—”

“Fucking you without getting you ready? Don’t be ridiculous, Dr. Bouchard, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Keay pauses. “Not unless you ask me very nicely.” His mouth travels south to Elias’ jaw. “I’m not one for pain, and I like to use my fingers.” Elias’ cock jumps, from the words or from the flick of tongue on skin, no more a traitor than the rest of him at this juncture. “Now, come here.”

Elias isn’t entirely certain how it is he comes to be standing with his legs splayed, his elbows planted on his desk while Keay lounges in the chair— _his_ damn chair—behind him, murmuring things he’s sure are meant to sound encouraging, maybe even appreciative, but Elias hasn’t got the patience for it. “Are you going to get on with it, Professor Keay?”

Keay laughs at that, and then there’s a slicked fingertip probing at his entrance, Keay’s other hand on one cheek to spread him wider. The thought of being looked at that way spreads heat through Elias’ face. “That eager for it, are you?”

Elias doesn’t bother to give that an answer, just drops his head low and shudders as he’s made to accommodate first one finger up to the knuckle, and then an exploring two, and then a careful third. Gerard Keay’s fingers are long things, and they would be elegant if they weren’t constantly a mess. Elegance aside, they are warm inside him, and thorough, and Elias makes a rough sound when they curl just right, and, “Right,” Keay says, sounding altogether too self-satisfied, “I think that’s enough of that.”

There are the sounds of a condom packet being torn open, of the lubricant cap popping open again, and then Keay’s chest is against his back, and his cock is pressing inside, inch by slow inch. Elias’ fingers curl around the edge of his desk.

“Doing all right?” Keay’s breath is hot on his ear.

“Don’t tell me you’re concerned.” Elias manages at least some smidgen of derision.

“Hardly.” Keay nudges his hips forward another fraction. “But I don’t need you complaining I’ve been too rough with you later.”

“Just fuck me, Keay.” This comes out through grit teeth; there’s more of Keay’s cock to go, he can tell, and he pushes his hips back, makes a startled, strangled sound when Keay delivers a little slap to his ass. It doesn’t hurt, but it does startle him.

“When I’m ready,” Keay admonishes, and before Elias can think what to snarl back over his shoulder, Keay is sliding the rest of the way into him, bottoming out and panting against the back of his throat. “You’re very tight, Dr. Bouchard. When’s the last time somebody fucked you?”

“That,” Elias says, not wanting to think of Peter, “is none of your concern.”

“Fair enough.” Keay rests one hand on the inside of Elias’ thigh. “You’re not just saying that because I’m your first, are you? You _have_ been fucked before?”

Elias makes a frustrated sound and feels an answering exhalation of laughter on his neck. “You’re not my first, Professor Keay.” But it _has_ been a long time.

“Small mercies,” Keay says, and his hips pull back, back, until he’s almost out of Elias altogether before filling him up again. There is (he hates to acknowledge) a thrill to keeping himself quiet, and he doesn’t want to give Keay the satisfaction of being loud in any case, and the little groans spilling from Keay’s throat are plenty of noise. The way he moves his hips is fluid, and his fingers are digging into Elias’ thigh, and Elias is pushing back against him. It seems a long time and no time at all before Keay straightens up and sets a new rhythm, and from there it’s two, three, four deep, languid thrusts before Elias comes with a hard breath, and Keay is still fucking into him, fingers pressing harder into Elias’ thigh like he wants to spread him wider still, and then Keay follows him over the edge.

They don’t move, at first. Elias can hardly believe he’s just allowed Gerard Keay to fuck him over his desk; unfortunately, it’s easier to believe how _good_ it was, especially with Keay’s cock still inside him. He wonders what Keay is thinking, if he’s disgusted by the entire incident, but isn’t going to ask, give him the chance for a _not bad for an old man_ or some other tripe.

Keay pulls out of him then, and teases the tip of one finger over his hole, and says, “Stand up, Dr. Bouchard, I want to see the mess you’ve made of your desk.”

“Shove off,” Elias says, but he allows Keay to pull him up against his fully-clothed chest, and his eyes fall on the streaks of his own release. Perfect. He’ll never be able to look at his desk properly again.

“Very good,” Keay says, and then there are teeth sinking into Elias’ throat, and Elias wants to shove him bodily away, but he moans, instead. He doesn’t look as Keay disposes of the condom in the wastebasket beneath his desk—he thinks, with a clinical distance, he’ll have to empty it soon—and tucks himself away. Then Keay tucks _him_ away as well, pats his arm and says, “There you go, good as new, nobody’d ever imagine you just let me bend you over the desk and fuck you.”

Keay kisses him, and that’s good too, and when he draws away Elias says, “We won’t be doing this again, Professor Keay.”

Gerard Keay blinks at him, smiling that wide cat-smile he hates so much, and says, “Won’t we?” and Elias Bouchard suspects they both know perfectly well that he’s not fooling anybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wife and I worked very hard to come up with the worst project name we could possibly think of, I assure you.


	5. when they speak of sin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title courtesy of [Pray](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1KeIUAunwE).

In an ideal world, Gerry would avoid ever knowing the date. That clashes somewhat with an obligatory awareness of term calendars and also with management at the Tate Modern, who insist on reminding him that he ought to have settled on a name for the upcoming show by now. They’ve gotten awfully pestery lately.

“We need to start designing the advertising material,” Chloe Ashburt, assistant everything, had stressed in a phone call this morning.

“There’s plenty of time,” Gerry’d said, and the line had gone quiet for so long a moment he’d nearly thought the connection was dropped, and then Chloe came back with, “For you, yes, but we have deadlines, Mr. Keay.”

_Ugh. Deadlines._

“Just put my name on a poster,” he’d suggested, not meaning to sound cocky, but there wasn’t much way around that, “nobody cares what the show’s called.”

Chloe’d audibly covered up a laugh with a cough at that and said, “I’ll certainly suggest it.”

At least nobody asks him for themes anymore. The gallery directors used to insist on them, and Gerry can’t stand the things. He’s always found them to be so constraining, left them as broad as he possibly can, so he could hang anything he liked side by side and have them feel perfectly at home sharing an umbrella. The day he’d realized he could tell them to sod off with their demands for a theme—he’d been a bit of a gleeful twat about it, but it had felt incredible.

His morning’s conversation with Chloe had lingered, talking over the gallery’s current exhibition that he hasn’t found time to walk through yet, and Chloe’s own experiments with sculpture.

Now he sets his paintbrush aside and looks approvingly over the fish swimming through a cityscape he’s just finished with. It’s time for a break. Maybe something new’ll come to him over a cup of coffee. Maybe Michael’s made strudel today. He washes his brush in the utility sink, giving much more thought to making sure the brush is clean than his own skin; there’s plenty of color left on him when he exits the house and sets off for Cosy.

The café, owned by Jon’s boyfriend Martin Blackwood and located within walking distance of the King’s campus, is warm and homey as ever it has been. It’s become a matter of habit to check which familiar faces are about when he steps inside. Plenty he doesn’t know by name, just as the Regular With the Excellent Hats or the Old Lady With Blue Hair or the Boy With Bee Tattoo; plenty he _does_ know by name, but there’s no sign of Melanie or Sasha or Tim.

What there _is_ , currently accepting a cup from Martin, is Dr. Elias Bouchard. Gerry has never seen him here before. He catches himself smiling; he _had_ fancied a distraction. Wiping the snide look off Bouchard’s face will serve perfectly well, and if he gets an orgasm out of the bargain—well.

This time of day there isn’t much of a queue, so Gerry saunters directly up to the counter, where Michael Shelley is side-eying the display. “Usual, Gerry?” he says without looking.

“Please,” Gerry says, and Bouchard’s eyes slide toward him. He waves a little. Bouchard looks positively repelled. _We won_ _’t be doing this again, Professor Keay._ Sure they won’t. There are plenty of things they haven’t done at all yet, and he means to make that point. “Also, is that apple strudel? I’ll have a piece of that.” His stomach rumbles. “Two pieces of that.”

It really is too bad it had to go and be some of the best sex of his life, bending Bouchard over his desk like that. He’s found his thoughts drifting, more often than he’d admit under torture, to what Bouchard might be like if they fucked somewhere else. If he’d be loud; if he’d break a little more if Gerry had him on his back. He wouldn’t call them pleasant thoughts, exactly.

“You know each other?” Michael indicates Bouchard while ringing him up.

“Unfortunately. He’s Jon’s adviser.” _And my Christ knows what._ Thing is, Bouchard’s still looking at him. He’s set himself down at a table to do it, and Gerry adds, a little louder, “He doesn’t like me very much. Thinks I’m an unqualified disaster, don’t you, Dr. Bouchard?”

Michael laughs into his elbow, while Martin smiles faintly over the drink he’s fixing.

“On the contrary, Professor Keay,” Bouchard says, “I think you’re more than qualified to be a disaster.”

Gerry does not laugh, because he does not find the observation particularly funny. His smile tightens a little.

Two minutes later, he’s sat across from Bouchard. “Expected you to make a break for it while I was waiting.” He’d spent that wait time chatting with Martin and Michael (and Oliver Banks, once he appeared from the back), without so much as a glance toward Bouchard. “Something you have to say to me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bouchard says with a sneer, and Gerry snorts.

“Wouldn’t want that, no.” He gives Bouchard a long look over a sip of his perfect-as-ever mint green tea; Martin Blackwood really was born to own a café. “Supposing you go down to the end of the street, where nobody knows us, and I meet you there in—” a quick consideration for what won’t seem _obvious_ and also gratitude that Georgie’s not working now, much as he loves her “—five minutes, give or take?”

The look Bouchard levels him with would, under some circumstances, be described as ‘unreasonably suspicious,’ which is fair enough. “What do you think you’re doing, Professor Keay?”

“I have a tiny sketchbook in my pocket, would you like me to draw you a diagram?” Gerry offers, attempting to sound helpful.

Bouchard stands up, his nostrils flaring adora—hilariously. Bouchard’s the opposite of that other thing. “Five minutes,” he says, and exits London’s best café with his head held high.

Gerry waits. Says his goodbyes to everyone at Cosy. Makes his way outside with his cup and his paper bag—there’s one strudel left to be eaten—and a tune whistling through his lips. It takes him seven minutes to find Bouchard loitering outside a little bistro. He greets him this time with, “Your office, I think.”

“What about my office?” This question is wary, and that _does_ seem unfair, but they are moving now, together at a steady clip, just two King’s College staff and their mutual resentment and lust draping itself between them like a third person. Probably Gerry’s imagination, that last bit.

“It’s a surprise.” He pats Bouchard’s arm, meaning it to be encouraging, though he doesn’t mind if it also comes off a little condescending; Bouchard’s condescending bastard enough for both of them, but Gerry can’t think why he shouldn’t share in it. He adds, “Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” and earns himself a glare. “I promise.”

Neither of them says another word for a block or so, until Bouchard breaks the stalemate with a stiff, “How are things in your department, Professor Keay?”

Gerry blinks at the question. Is Bouchard attempting to make polite conversation with him? “Oh,” he says, unable to entirely mask that it’s taken him off-guard, “they’re good, I suppose. Some scrambling over this interdepartmental HUGS nonsense, but I’m not so much involved with that.” He grins, points them back onto safe ground before they’ve gone too far astray (safer ground for him, ground he knows how to walk without stepping on a land mine or getting his feet stuck in swampland). “D’you know, I think as many of my students sign up because they think I’m hot as for the sake of learning from me? I’ve got a chili pepper on that website.”

Bouchard rolls his eyes and says an acid, “That must be horrible for you.”

Gerry makes a thoughtful sound; it’s difficult to make a nudge truly suggestive without his hips involved, but he thinks he manages it. “I’m sure it’s the same for you, Dr. Bouchard. Lots of fluttering schoolgirls, hm?”

Bouchard snorts, but there’s a smile cracking his lips, proving he’s amused despite himself, and Gerry feels a stab of triumph.

“Not really.”

“Ah. My mistake. Fluttering school _boys_ , is it?”

Bouchard produces a coughing sound Gerry thinks is meant to disguise a laugh.

“It’s all right, you can admit I’ve said something funny, Dr. Bouchard.”

“I will,” Bouchard says, perfectly placid now, “if you ever do.”

Gerry laughs, then catches Bouchard’s elbow to remove him from the path of a student who’s too wrapped up in his campus map to notice the two professors on the walkway. “I don’t know why I did that,” he ponders aloud. “Ought to have let you crash.”

“How unspeakably kind of you.” Bouchard gives the impression of rolling his eyes through tone alone. Gerry is mildly impressed.

“It _was_ , wasn’t it? I’ll have to work on that.”

There isn’t much more to be said on the walk to Bouchard’s office, where Gerry locks the door behind them; can’t be taking _too_ many chances, can they. “Good thing you’re not loud,” he says thoughtfully. Bouchard throws him a look that hasn’t settled, quite, on _venomous_ or _mortified_ , instead hovering awkwardly between the two. Gerry laughs at it, in any case, and strides toward him with all the purpose in the world, and once he’s there, drops to his knees.

“What are you doing?” Bouchard says, Gerry’s fingers popping the button of his tailored trousers, and _really_.

Gerry quirks an eyebrow up at him. “A diagram is still on the table, I suppose, but a demonstration would be better.”

In any case, the cock beneath his palm is growing rapidly harder, so evidently _somebody_ here knows what’s happening, even if that somebody is just the southernmost brain. Gerry smiles, again with teeth, though he won’t be putting those to use here, he’s not cruel.

He frees Bouchard’s cock, sliding his trousers midway down his thighs, further than strictly necessary, but it does entertaining things to Bouchard’s face. He rests one hand on a hip, the other wrapping around Bouchard’s cock, giving it a few lazy strokes before he licks the head, and that gets him a sound that is, despite itself, pleased.

“A bit rude to pretend you don’t like this,” Gerry says, amused, his breath on Bouchard’s cock. “You’ll bruise my ego.”

“I can’t imagine how you’ll mana—” Bouchard breaks off as Gerry takes him in his mouth, his tongue curling along the underside. There’s a hand on his head a moment later, tentative, like Bouchard’s not sure he’s allowed to have it there; Gerry appreciates the considerate hesitation, but he takes Bouchard deeper, makes a muffled _yes go on_ sound around his mouthful, and oh, that’s nice, Bouchard’s fingers curling against his scalp.

Bouchard’s cock is longer than his own, and almost as thick, and Gerry doesn’t lie to himself about enjoying the weight on his tongue. He’s always liked doing this, rather bringing a man to his knees while on his own. There’s also the way Bouchard is breathing, the little catches, and the tension of fingers atop his skull; it doesn’t take long, a few clever flicks of tongue and suction to draw an orgasm from him. It’s easier to swallow than to not, and he lifts a lazy look toward Bouchard after. The hand is still there, Bouchard’s cheeks flush with color.

“The demonstration was really the way to go, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose you want me to return the favor,” Bouchard says, in a tone Gerry can’t quite read.

“Not really.” Gerry leverages his palms on his own legs to stand up, and gives Bouchard’s forearm a sympathetic pat at the suspicious look he’s getting now. “It’s only that I prefer to have my cock sucked by people who know how to do it.”

Bouchard sneers. “What makes you think I don’t know how to suck a cock?”

There’s a special kind of delight in hearing something that vulgar come from the mouth of the ever-prim and proper Dr. Elias Bouchard, and Gerry takes a moment to give it the appreciation it deserves, a smile playing at his lips. Then he places himself in Bouchard’s chair and allows his legs to fall open, his arousal making itself known. “Feel free to prove otherwise.”

Bouchard gives him a never-before-seen gesture he interprets as ‘open your trousers.’

“I don’t think so,” Gerry says, shaking his head and watching Bouchard’s face pinch. “If you’re so compelled to prove your cocksucking ability, you can take it out yourself.”

There’s an interesting bit of conflict on Bouchard’s face then, and Gerry doesn’t much care what he settles on; sure, he’s hard, but there are ways to solve that without the man’s mouth on his cock.

Bouchard goes to his knees, and it’s _that_ a lovely picture. Gerry refrains from touching, from doing much more than the necessary shifting as Bouchard frees his cock. Bouchard gives his own palm a lick before wrapping it around Gerry’s prick, and Gerry shudders; if this is all Bouchard wants to do, it’ll be enough. (He’s hardly interested in a blowjob the other party doesn’t want to be giving, pun…carefully considered.) Gerry’s leaking, more aroused than he cares to admit by the sight of Elias Bouchard on his knees before him, the hand warm and sure on his cock, and that helps to smooth the way.

He does begin to wonder, after what seems much too long of Bouchard examining his cock, if Bouchard ever means to get on with it. “Something on your mind?”

“I’m surprised you don’t dye this as well,” Bouchard says, like he’s talking about some bit of literary analysis, not the patch of red-brown between Gerry’s legs.

“Too much effort.” Gerry grins, though Bouchard’s not looking at him. “And it makes a nice surprise, don’t you think?”

Bouchard doesn’t answer that.

There’s no eye contact before Bouchard flicks his tongue over the head of Gerry’s cock, and not before he’s halfway down the man’s throat.

“Oh,” he says, and that’s Bouchard’s tongue, there, “oh, fuck,” and the slick sound as Bouchard raises his head doesn’t help Gerry’s situation—that is, making a mess of Bouchard’s mouth and very probably his expensive chair.

“You’ll need to be quiet, Professor Keay,” Bouchard says, as though he’s telling off one of his students, and the sternness of it shouldn’t make Gerry just that much harder, but _shouldn_ _’t_ hasn’t expressed much interest in this conversation. He swallows a moan, clamps his hands tight on the arms of the chair—because it’s that or the back of Bouchard’s head, and he doesn’t know if he’s got the self-control for that just now—and keeps his eyes on Bouchard as the absolute bastard presses kisses along the line of his cock, until he reaches the head and swallows him again.

Gerry’s head tips back, but he doesn’t close his eyes, doesn’t look away for a moment while Elias Bouchard licks and sucks and drives him fully out of his mind with a sort of pleasure he’d rather not admit to himself.

“Dr. Bouchard,” he breathes, his voice low and nearly desperate, and Bouchard makes a little sound around his cock that pushes him nearer the edge. He snatches at Bouchard’s hair, pulls him off, and the sight of Bouchard’s lips, slick and red and utterly obscene, is all he needs; when he comes, he thinks the subsequent sight of his come all over Bouchard’s face might be enough to fuel another go.

Bouchard makes a face, but before he can complain, Gerry drags him up for a kiss. He tastes himself on Bouchard’s tongue, feels Bouchard’s hand on his oversensitive cock, and shudders. “You look good like that,” he says, “but I suppose I shouldn’t leave it.”

That said, he licks a stripe up Bouchard’s cheek, and does it again, again, until he’s cleaned up, and Bouchard looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, nor with Gerry. Stabbing is probably on the table.

“Come here, old man.” Gerry ghosts his hands down Bouchard’s sides to his hips, until he turns him around.

Bouchard scowls over his shoulder, but stays put where he’s been tugged onto Gerry’s lap. “You don’t mean to—”

“Fuck you?” Gerry says lightly. “Not today, no. Put your hands on the desk, Dr. Bouchard.”

There’s a moment of hesitation or refusal, but rather than complaining or telling him to shut up, Bouchard complies. That’s another sight Gerry can appreciate. He presses a kiss to the top of Bouchard’s spine, over his shirt, then to his neck, trailing his way to the curve of one shoulder. “That was much better than I thought it would be,” he says, combing his fingers upwards through Bouchard’s hair.

“I’m so glad you were impressed,” Bouchard says, more than an edge sardonic.

“You should be.” Gerry bites the place he’s just been kissing. It’d be too much effort to get Bouchard’s shirt off now, but the thought does cross his mind for another time. “It means I’ll let you do it again.”

“And just what makes you think I have any interest in doing it again?”

Gerry runs his other hand between Bouchard’s legs. “Let’s not pretend, Bouchard. It’s not a good look, unlike my come on your face. You haven’t got to like me to like touching me, and I haven’t got to like you, either.” He leans forward, licks at Bouchard’s earlobe, and appreciates the halting quality of his breath. “Wear your reading glasses next time you’ve got my cock in your mouth. I think I’d like to see that.” Bouchard shudders, and he adds, cheerfully, “I know you’re about four thousand years old, darling, but could you get off again if I fucked you with my fingers? I think I’d like to find out.”

Bouchard doesn’t protest, and between them that’s as good as a yes.

* * *

As it happens, Bouchard _can_ come a second time, with two of Gerry’s fingers massaging his prostate and three of them stuffed in his mouth to stop him complaining about it. Gerry leaves the office quite pleased with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve learned chili peppers no longer exist on rate my professor but I choose to reject that reality


End file.
